Experience a real-life ghost story at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (PAFA) in Philadelphia—the oldest art school in the United States—with the exhibition Fernando Orellana: His Study of Life (until 6 November), an attempt by the New York-based artist Orellana to summon the spirit of the artist Thomas Eakins (1844-1916), who taught at the school in the late 19th century. The show features some of Eakins’s personal possessions from the PAFA collection and four robotic machines with electromagnetic, infrared and temperature monitors that sense paranormal activity. When fluctuations are recorded, the robots “help” Eakins’s ghost perform various actions, such as opening his watercolour box and drawing—both from archival photographs by Eakins, and from live nude models who pose throughout the show in the same attitudes that Eakins recorded over a century ago. “There have been no reports of paranormal activity so far,” says the show’s curator, Jodi Throckmorton. “The exhibition has only been open for a few days and perhaps Eakins and other ghosts are still warming up to the idea of the installation.”
